Author
Topic: Whats the haps?

Bad week went on:= Dad had two, albeit minor, heart attacks. Daresay with his habits and diet and life choices, I'm not surprised, but still worried. He's got a lot to change around now since he's a smoker, overweight, and riddled with high blood pressure (which shows in how easily he gets angry about things and what he gets upset about). And yay! School/work combo keeps me nice and busy to visit him= Two classes, one hundred pages of reading a day + assignments (bye-bye summertime...)= People I work with are dickheads (weird when I like customers more than them sometimes)= Brother's fiancee won't have me as a bridesmaid and may not have me say a speech (I'll make a drunken scene if I can't get the latter)

My deepest sympathies reach out to you (especially in regards to coworkers being a pain over customers). I hope you get to do your speech, if not, please crash it quickly with heavy strumming of a guitar (it doesn't have to be anything tonal, just strum the heck out it). Be sure to walk around tables with a frown on your face...while strumming:

She's sort of like a quickly moving need on a barometer. Sometimes she's the sweetest, coolest, smartest person around, then she quickly changes to opinionated, pushy, and wacky. No catty crap, she's just really taking things by the horns and, god love him, my brother is like 120% vag whipped (he's usually just that kinda guy).

Ah, werd. An old high school buddy of mine ended up marrying a Dr. Jekyll much like your future sister in law. He seems happy with it, which I would assume like your brother's situation, is what matters. Some people just have a niche to fill, I suppose. Best of luck to your pops.

The boyfriend is working late tonight so i was thinking about getting a pizza or something ordered in. Whilst perusing the menu of a local fish and chip shop I happened upon a "Nutella Pizza".

I've gone beyond saddened about how my country loves to make food that will kill you, and started being somewhat impressed and proud. Damn fucking right our food will give you a heart attack by just looking at it, and how!

Bad week went on:= Dad had two, albeit minor, heart attacks. Daresay with his habits and diet and life choices, I'm not surprised, but still worried. He's got a lot to change around now since he's a smoker, overweight, and riddled with high blood pressure (which shows in how easily he gets angry about things and what he gets upset about). And yay! School/work combo keeps me nice and busy to visit him= Two classes, one hundred pages of reading a day + assignments (bye-bye summertime...)= People I work with are dickheads (weird when I like customers more than them sometimes)= Brother's fiancee won't have me as a bridesmaid and may not have me say a speech (I'll make a drunken scene if I can't get the latter)

My deepest sympathies reach out to you (especially in regards to coworkers being a pain over customers). I hope you get to do your speech, if not, please crash it quickly with heavy strumming of a guitar (it doesn't have to be anything tonal, just strum the heck out it). Be sure to walk around tables with a frown on your face...while strumming:

Thanks Wild, for all that and the lovely Road to El Dorado gif in this context. x) It's a good idea.

She's sort of like a quickly moving need on a barometer. Sometimes she's the sweetest, coolest, smartest person around, then she quickly changes to opinionated, pushy, and wacky. No catty crap, she's just really taking things by the horns and, god love him, my brother is like 120% vag whipped (he's usually just that kinda guy).

Ah, werd. An old high school buddy of mine ended up marrying a Dr. Jekyll much like your future sister in law. He seems happy with it, which I would assume like your brother's situation, is what matters. Some people just have a niche to fill, I suppose. Best of luck to your pops.

Basically. Bro seems happy so what else is there to say?And thanks. THe old guy has enough energy to complain so I'm sure he'll be fine. :D

I've always wanted to try some gross dessert to let me die happy and cross it off me bucket list. I think the unhealthiest think I've ever eaten is KFC or funnel cakes. I want something terrible. Yoda, please show me 'round the good ol 'Murica and its tastiest and bloatiest patisserie!

I'm starting to think that non-random battles, as much as their's a trend against them, aren't that great for games where you have very, very separated combat and exploration phases.

Look at it this way.

You're in a dungeon with ten encounters in it, and you can see the enemies on the map. There are basically two ways this can play out:

1) You can walk past the enemies since you can see them.2) They're all mandatory encounters that you can't get past in which case they're not really functionally different from random encounters.(2b. This is actually pretty common in older PC dungeon crawlers, but you have non-random points where you MIGHT get an encounter, but whether you get one or not is random).

I'm going with point 1 here since it's more interesting from my perspective and I've got two or three really big problems with it:

1) Assuming enemies are avoidable, they probably either chase you or have some sort of pattern you can learn to avoid them. If they start chasing you and you want to avoid them, there's a good chance you have to backtrack across the map some to avoid getting attacked. If you still get attacked, you now have the added time from getting chased around combined with getting attacked. A random battle, in the last case, would've been faster.

1b) Dungeon Master-type games have a subset of this issue, where you need to back up constantly while your weapons recharge, although this is more of an issue with the battle system. Also their battles tend to not actually be avoidable since you can't run past enemies and they tend to get you at chokepoints.

2) If battles are readily avoidable and you avoid a lot of them, there's a good chance you're going to end up under-leveled. I think a lot of players just end up doing every battle, whether they're avoidable or not, for this reason. Which raises three issues:

a) Why even go for non-random battles in the first place if the player's going to be compelled to fight them all anyway?b) If there are ten encounters in an area and you're going to be compelled into doing them all, it gets back to that checklisting thing again -- you're not playing, you're just checking semi-mandatory tasks off a list.c) Finally, if you still have bosses that expect you to be at a certain experience level, but all non-boss combat is not required, then all non-boss combat is effectively grind.

Point c in particular is something I'm running into in Persona 3 a lot since it's really easy to avoid fights.

3) I don't see this much so it doesn't really bug me, but whether you have random or non-random encounters or not does impact how you design areas. You will tend to get larger dungeons with more empty space when you have to account for non-random encounters, just because you have to make room for more map entities.

I'm trying to think of cases where random battles really bugged me and like, it's Rogue Galaxy and Xenogears that are the biggest offenders. And in both cases it wasn't the random battles per se it's that you can fall off the fucking map when they hit and you have these goddamn jumping sequences in XG and thse goddamn inavigable multi-layered prisons in Rogue Galaxy. And in RG's it's more that they REALLY should've made it not possible to fall off of platforms in battle, so that's more battle system than the randomization aspect.

Xenogears and PDS also share this fun trait where rotating the camera can trigger random battles.

So generally speaking I'm not bothered by random battles per se, but by stupid things triggering them, excessively high encounter rates, random battles in puzzles rooms, and random battles during platformy/climby bits.

Random or non-random, what annoys me the most with RPG combat is when fights drag on forever due to useless, non-action bits. Stuff like aTB bars that take forever to charge (Septerra Core), or really high miss rates (Wiz. 8), or high-defense enemies that can't really kill but you still have to wait forever for them to become vulnerable or just wear them down (Panzer Dragoon Saga).

I think adopting a pokemon-style "high grass" kind of thing might have wider user. Have random battles, but only in clearly-marked areas.

Logged

o/` I do not feel joy o/`o/` I do not dream o/`o/` I only stare at the door and smoke o/`

I too am sorry to hear the tonality of your last week or two hasn't precisely been rosey.... You are indeed one of those people, whom for whatever reason, I feel for when I read of your misfortunes. Sometimes it truly feels as though we are swimming upstream so to speak. I myself have certainly had some upstream moments in the last month or two.

I've always wanted to try some gross dessert to let me die happy and cross it off me bucket list. I think the unhealthiest think I've ever eaten is KFC or funnel cakes. I want something terrible. Yoda, please show me 'round the good ol 'Murica and its tastiest and bloatiest patisserie!

I too fantasize about being able to sample some artery clogging morsels. Given the condition of my guts, this of course is out of the question as for the last month or so anything outside the realm of knox gelatin, plain cod and organic spinach is enough to make me call off work.

As for the news in Klyde's realm...

I scored some old Gundam model kits this past weekend. Not a gundam fan really, but the price was right and they have strong nostalgic value (i loved these as a kid).

The event incited a massive re-do of the decor of my living room at 4 am the other night. I need to show someone the result of my late-night labors and have no one so I choose to show you guys! I'll spare "Haps" thread and throw them over in the photo thread for anyone who cares to see.

PS to Dice, If a pre-assembled gundam model will cheer you up I'll send you one. Shipping is on me :) Just PM me.

Well, the random battle complaint is that you can't account for them. If a dungeon is ending up longer than I thought and I need to be somewhere, if the encounters aren't ranodm, I'll go out of my way to avoid fights in order to get to a save point and backtrack when I have more time. Also, a lot of games have me seeking out particular enemies for their spoils, which is harder to do with random battles.

Then there's the jolt. Although in both cases the encounter takes you out of the current space (depending on the game, of course), the "interruption" is far more jarring when you don't see the enemy coming. This is particularly frustrating when you've figured out a dungeon's puzzle and you're just trying to get the pieces in order.

Also, I've tried to get into Rogue Galaxy time and again because I loved Dark Cloud 2 so much, but I can't get over just how much grinding there is in order to prepare for boss fights. It's infuriatingly boring.

Random encounters never really bothered me in the first place. I agree with pretty much everything Mesh said about non-random encounters...but I don't think that's anything new. I've felt that way about non-random encounters since they were introduced.

That said, I really wish more games would take the Ar Tonelico approach: Random encounters, sure, but there's a maximum number of encounters in each dungeon/region and once you've hit that you're free to backtrack/explore at your leisure. Essentially there's a pool of enemies for each area that you can exhaust.

I too am sorry to hear the tonality of your last week or two hasn't precisely been rosey.... You are indeed one of those people, whom for whatever reason, I feel for when I read of your misfortunes. Sometimes it truly feels as though we are swimming upstream so to speak. I myself have certainly had some upstream moments in the last month or two.

I've always wanted to try some gross dessert to let me die happy and cross it off me bucket list. I think the unhealthiest think I've ever eaten is KFC or funnel cakes. I want something terrible. Yoda, please show me 'round the good ol 'Murica and its tastiest and bloatiest patisserie!

I too fantasize about being able to sample some artery clogging morsels. Given the condition of my guts, this of course is out of the question as for the last month or so anything outside the realm of knox gelatin, plain cod and organic spinach is enough to make me call off work.

As for the news in Klyde's realm...

I scored some old Gundam model kits this past weekend. Not a gundam fan really, but the price was right and they have strong nostalgic value (i loved these as a kid).

The event incited a massive re-do of the decor of my living room at 4 am the other night. I need to show someone the result of my late-night labors and have no one so I choose to show you guys! I'll spare "Haps" thread and throw them over in the photo thread for anyone who cares to see.

PS to Dice, If a pre-assembled gundam model will cheer you up I'll send you one. Shipping is on me :) Just PM me.

Thanks for the regards Klyde, means a lot that peeps online would read and feel anything at all. Hopefully I'm swimming upstream and there isn't a bear at the end waiting to gobble me up when I make the final jump. ...Good metaphor?

Love the hell out of the collection, but I hate to say that I think my figure collecting days are almost done because I'm a stickler for dust these days (and I got enough crap in the room to move around and clean). *sigh* I love figures and models and everything too, but I think it'll be one of those awesome geek things, like cosplay is now, that I'll always wanna take part in, but never do (and just gaze at from afar).

I'm thinking of starting a Kickstarter for a working computer to fund my art stuff, since now i don't have a working computer system to scan and work on stuff (shitty HP laptop not included and needed for far more important things like the last year of education).

I'm gonna try to balance the idea that "sex sells" and still retain my dignity. People who donate $1000 get the pleasure of my company for a night (no touching), $2000 pledges get my underwear (brand new but sprayed washed in fresh laundry smell and one spray of perfume), $500 gets a cupcake with my face on it and says "I'm delicious!" (because cupcakes are), $200 gets an image of boobs (not mine but the image is signed by me).

With regards to Random Battles, I noticed that when I fought everyone I came across, the game was less difficult. I few duh observations that help me decide whether I want an easy ride or a tougher ride through a game.

I personally prefer completely random battles, or at least non-random with respawning enemies. Mainly because I like the freedom of grinding your characters to whatever "levels" you want them to be at the time. I feel that dungeons with a limited amount of enemies, or easily avoidable fights, leaves your characters "capped", in a way.Also, it's a real feeling of accomplishment when you finish a long dungeon that had unavoidable battles being thrown at you left and right, and your characters are worn the fuck out. Frustrating? Definitely, but oh so satisfying.

...Maybe I'm just an old-school glutton for punishment that way. This is really a different strokes kind of topic.

Well, the random battle complaint is that you can't account for them. If a dungeon is ending up longer than I thought and I need to be somewhere, if the encounters aren't ranodm, I'll go out of my way to avoid fights in order to get to a save point and backtrack when I have more time. Also, a lot of games have me seeking out particular enemies for their spoils, which is harder to do with random battles.

See this is problematic with or without random encounters -- if they're non-random but respawning they STILL might be hard to avoid. A better solution? Free and easy returns to the last save point, if the game is built around having a save point system, or just let the player save anywhere.

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Then there's the jolt.

This is obnoxious but not deal breaking for me, however it's why I think something like the countdown meter in recent SMT/Etrian Odyssey games, or confining encounters to specific areas (tall grass in Pokemon, behind doors in early Wizardry games) is a really GOOD idea. There's still random battles but you aren't going to be unprepared for them. The !'s in Wild Arms 2 were a neat approach to, I guess, this problem as well.

(Alternatively you could just do what XG does and have the disc spin up like crazy when it's loading a battle to give you warning. Kekekekefuckno).

You could also just take out all non-boss combat or something.

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Also, I've tried to get into Rogue Galaxy time and again because I loved Dark Cloud 2 so much, but I can't get over just how much grinding there is in order to prepare for boss fights

I never got past the prison dungeon because it was endless :(

Actually RG's problems weren't the random battles. It's that battles took place on the map. Imagine the game having non-random battles and respawning enemies and it'd still have the same problems -- the combat completely disrupts your ability to get through the dungeons.

« Last Edit: July 16, 2013, 07:04:18 PM by MeshGearFox »

Logged

o/` I do not feel joy o/`o/` I do not dream o/`o/` I only stare at the door and smoke o/`